Mundane Dogmatic
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Basic Information

A Mundane Dogmatic setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane Manifesto, of which the central ideas are:

* That interstellar travel remains unlikely; that warp drives, worm holes, and other forms of faster-than-light travel are wish fulfillment fantasies rather than serious speculation about a possible future.

* That unfounded speculation about interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth. This is also viewed as unlikely.

* That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth.

* That there is no evidence whatsoever of intelligences elsewhere in the universe. That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence — however, it is considered unlikely that alien intelligences will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.

* That interstellar trade (and colonization, war, federations, etc.) is therefore highly unlikely.

* That communication with alien intelligences over such vast distances will be vexed by: the enormous time lag in exchange of messages and the likelihood of enormous and probably currently unimaginable differences between us and aliens.

* That there is no present evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that there are whole alternative universes to be visited.

* That therefore our most likely future is on this planet and within this solar system, and that it is highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system. Any contact with aliens is likely to be tenuous, and unprofitable.

* That the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

Sources

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MundaneDogmatic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction

RPG: GURPS: Transhuman Space — largely follows the principles of Mundane SF: no FTL travel; no aliens (except for A.I.s and genetically augmented humans), etc.

Bibliography
1. full source reference

Game and Story Use

  • A setting like this will obviously not be to everyone's liking. Some players might find it too limiting.
  • On the other hand, by limiting the outlandish elements, the GM also reduces the chance that he might wind up contradicitng himself, or give the players access to something he might later regret.
    • Nah. The Players will always find a way to mess things up. It's what they do.
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